One person whom I spoke with recently told me that the bottom line to his disappointment in this election was the following: That he learned that the majority of Americans are not good people. And this has totally altered his view of America and living in America.
Another person told me something similar. Now, when he walks down the street, he wonders about everyone he passes. “Did that person vote for Trump?” he asks himself.
Can a person who voted for Trump and his 33,000 lies last time in office, lies pronounced rally after rally after rally in Election 2024, be called a “good person”? Voting for some one who promises to free from prison on his first day in office the legions of violent protesters who strove to overthrow the government by attacking the capitol and the very peaceful transfer of power on January 6?
Meister Eckhart gave us a very profound and practical definition of a good person when he said, “a good person is one who praises good people.” A good person is looking for goodness. Such a person is not stuck in envy or competition and has not lost the art of praising.
A good person praises. A good person lives with a Via Positiva, a love of life, close to their heart. In contrast, a bad person does not praise good people.
Thomas Aquinas alerted us to how “a tyrant is more afraid of good people than of bad people.” Good and Beauty and Truth were on the ballot this November. And they lost.
The list of cabinet members proposed by the president-elect is not over-flowing with good people.
A person who does not care about truth in any fashion has lost his/her soul. The Christ by any other name is rightly called “the Truth and the Light.” The winner on November 5 was not truth or light or the Christ by any other name. The best of human nature did not win on November 5. But the worst.
Expect more violence; more hatred; more racism; more sexism; more compulsion to control women’s bodies; more corruption; more rule by the few; more distractions; more circuses; more entertainment; more injustice; more denial of and work against climate change; more privileges for the few and well connected (tax cuts for example); more indifference to right and wrong; more efforts to cut Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid; more crackpot Christianity; more idolatry; more scapegoating; more lies; more hypocrisy; more patriarchy; more global warming with all its consequences; more class warfare; more billionaires running the media spewing lies without end of which the Murdochs were the trend setters; more billionaires making decisions in all of our names.
More government of billionaires, by billionaires and for billionaires. This in contrast to the first Republican president’s leadership to defend what he (Lincoln) called a government “of the people, by the people and for the people.”
The former, not the latter, is what America voted for six weeks ago. No wonder people are sad and grieving and dropping out. Elections, as they say, have consequences.
But people are also organizing to resist and to gather and speak truth to power. To awaken the spiritual warrior in themselves and their work worlds.
To be continued.
See Matthew Fox, Trump and the MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election.
And Fox, Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul & Society.
And Fox, The Hidden Spirituality of Men: Ten Metaphors to Awaken the Sacred Masculine.
Banner Image: “Donald Trump Inauguration Day protest in Seattle,” 2017. Plans for Inauguration Day 2025 protests are in motion. Photo by Scott Lum on Flickr.
How are you doing? Are you gathering up your energy and powers of spiritual warriorhood to resist and continue giving birth to goodness in the world and in the body politic and encouraging others to do so?
Recommended Reading
Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election
Matthew Fox tells us that he had always shied away from using the term “Anti-Christ” because it was so often used to spread control and fear. However, given today’s rise of authoritarianism and forces of democracide, ecocide, and christofascism, he turns the tables in this book employing the archetype for the cause of justice, democracy, and a renewed Earth and humanity.
From the Foreword: If there was ever a time, a moment, for examining the archetype of the Antichrist, it is now…Read this book with an open mind. Good and evil are real forces in our world. ~~ Caroline Myss, author of Anatomy of the Spirit and Conversations with the Divine.
For immediate access to Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election, order the e-book with 10 full-color prints from Amazon HERE.
To get a print-on-demand paperback copy with black & white images, order from Amazon HERE or IUniverse HERE.
To receive a limited-edition, full-color paperback copy, order from MatthewFox.org HERE.
Order the audiobook HERE for immediate download.
Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul and Society
Visionary theologian and best-selling author Matthew Fox offers a new theology of evil that fundamentally changes the traditional perception of good and evil and points the way to a more enlightened treatment of ourselves, one another, and all of nature. In comparing the Eastern tradition of the 7 chakras to the Western tradition of the 7 capital sins, Fox allows us to think creatively about our capacity for personal and institutional evil and what we can do about them.
“A scholarly masterpiece embodying a better vision and depth of perception far beyond the grasp of any one single science. A breath-taking analysis.” — Diarmuid O’Murchu, author of Quantum Theology: Spiritual Implications of the New Physics
The Hidden Spirituality of Men: Ten Metaphors to Awaken the Sacred Masculine
To awaken what Fox calls “the sacred masculine,” he unearths ten metaphors, or archetypes, ranging from the Green Man, an ancient pagan symbol of our fundamental relationship with nature, to the Spiritual Warrior….These timeless archetypes can inspire men to pursue their higher calling to connect to their deepest selves and to reinvent the world.
“Every man on this planet should read this book — not to mention every woman who wants to understand the struggles, often unconscious, that shape the men they know.” — Rabbi Michael Lerner, author of The Left Hand of God
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11 thoughts on “Good People, Bad People, Democracy & Spiritual Warriorhood”
So disappointed, Matthew, for the first time ever in you. In this reflection you seem to support the good person bad person shortsightedness of the day. I’m surprised ! Is God a god of some of the people? Does the non-dual ultimate reality encouraged us to polarize snd oversimplify? Did you write this? Are you judging people you do not know and have never met?
Not the M Fox I have followed snd esteemed for 50 years.
I did not take Matthew’s message as a judgement on someone’s essential nature only the consequences of someone who makes bad decisions, uses bad judgement and is possibly corrupt morally. That is factual and has little to do with non duality.
Matthew told the truth as he has always done. When the massive suffering, unjust persecutions, racism, corruption, death, and destruction of a second much uglier Trump reign begin, (the suffering from the last term is still simmering, as in things like women dying from miscarriages due to abortion bans), are you still going to hold to there are no good or bad people? This does not mean they cannot turn from evil. But the fact remains that the evil that Trump is,
and represents, is clear for all to see, and to freely choose it means there is a similar answering cruelty inside of his supporters that is attracted to him and other strongmen authoritarian leaders. Have some been duped? Yes, many of those have already woken up from the first term, and there will be a few more who do this time, and when they do
they should be welcomed. But there can be no watering down of the suffering, death and evil that voting for Trump will inevitably bring, and as Nobel winner Bishop Desmond Tutu showed us, no reconciliation without truth. I applaud Matthew’s courage.
Thank-you, Matthew, for having the courage and razor sharp moral clarity to tell it exactly like it is and to describe the situation with such eloquence and truth. It is my prayer that a creative resistance will form all over the world that will ignite a peaceful, but explosive revolution to overcome all authoritarians and the ultra rich oligarchs that power their cruel, oppressive and destructive reigns.
As a prophet, social justice warrior, and mystic, you did a great job Matthew in today’s DM of being realistic with us, along with other social thinkers and professionals, about the very challenging times we have ahead of us with Trump’s election as president. I also liked your definition of good people and the need for social spiritual warriors in these difficult times. I feel that most people who voted for Trump are the part of humanity that is ignorant and socially conditioned/brainwashed since childhood by long existing toxic and spiritually unbalanced patriarchal values, especially men, that have contributed to historic social injustices, violence, wars, racism of all types, including misogyny and ecocide of Our Beautiful Sacred Mother Earth endangering all living species, including our own human species. Of course there have also always existed the truly bad few who are greedy and egocentrically care more for their power, control of others and their material wealth.
Yes, our Faith as spiritual warriors in God’s Spirit of Love, Wisdom, Truth, Peace, Justice, Creativity, Compassion… being Present within, through, among is essential on our daily spiritual journeys and evolution with one another….
I am British and am not eligible to vote. However, I cannot carve Americans in half and call those who voted for Donald Trump “Bad”, and by converse, those who voted for Kamala Harris “Good”. Nor can it be said that people are “dropping out”. In fact, more people voted in this election than they have for decades. The crisis we have, in my view, is not a political crisis but a Spiritual Crisis and all of us – the human race – need to be awakened to a far greater Cosmic Reality and reminded of our innate glorious Divinity. Neither political party – nor any political party – is going to give us that. It is the responsibility of theologians and the instinct of poets to do this. That is what needs to be at the heart of our human dialogue. An election was held, their were “winners” and “losers”. Caesar was rendered unto; but now the focus has to given unto this incredible Divine Cosmic Experience to lift us out of the daily drudgery and sideshow of politics. Let us celebrate Life!
Thank You Matt!!!!
Trump won reelection because he is just like the people who voted for him. He accurately reflects the people we have become in America. I can hear the denials coming through already. We’re not like him, we are better, nicer, caring, and selfless people in this country. These are the illusions we like to maintain. Trump will lead us all to face the truth about the kind of people we have become in our relationships with one another and the Earth. The truth will turn out to be a great deal uglier than anyone is ready to admit. After Trump has done his worst, mankind will have to rebuild on the truth of our interconnection to one another and all that is. We would rather not go there right now as we are having too much fun in our separateness. There is little time left to do this as our ability to coexist in that way is coming to an end soon.
Well said, although it is a global reckoning that is needed, not just an American one.
I doubt that it mattered at all who the Democratic candidate was. The elephant in the room was the huge amount of disinformation Trump and his allies spread throughout the country. Many people believed without question what they heard from him. Thomas Jefferson said for a democracy to survive, it needs an educated public. It means having a public educated about what is, what’s real, what’s true.
And wouldn’t Rupert Murdoch, consistently promoting Trump’s lies, also qualify as an Anti-Christ?
“A good person is looking for goodness.” Nothing is good or bad, only judging makes it so? Luke 6:37